It's always so hard to see people hurting, mourning, and missing someone they love. And perhaps it's also a feeling of absolute helplessness when you approach a mourning widow or child and say, simply, "I'm so sorry for your loss." You know your words do little to end their suffering or ease their pain, but what else can you really do?
This funeral is different. Another of my husband's co-worker friends, but this time he is a victim of cancer at the young age of 42. And when I tell the widow and children that I'm sorry for their loss, I will be able to fully relate. I lost my mother to cancer nearly 6 years ago.
I've been thinking about cancer. I can't help but think about it. I know so many people who either have cancer, had cancer before, or are trying to find out if they have it. I know so many broken hearts because the reality of those dreaded words, "you have cancer," means a tough road ahead. A road that, quite frankly, may terminate before taking a turn back towards health and life. And when I think of cancer, the only thing that really makes sense is that the devil himself comes in the form of cancer.
Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8
Isn't that what cancer does? It looks for healthy cells to destroy. Cancer is non-discriminatory. It will take over any part of your body, regardless of your gender or race, your financial status, your ethnicity, your religion. Cancer prays on healthy cells and devours them, spreading rapidly from cell to cell, leaving destruction in it's wake. Think of a lion on the prowl in a National Geographic video. He lurks quietly behind the brush, waiting for an innocent gazelle to pass by. And before you can change the channel or look away, he's sunk his giant teeth into that gazelle's flesh and destroyed it. And just that fast the gazelle is gone, reduced to a few bones and scraps for the gnats and ants to feast on.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy
John 10:10
Cancer is a thief. It steals it's victim's future. It steals the joy and happiness of it's victims. It steals their hope. It causes them to believe that the future is gone, or at least fading. They begin to feel hopeless, helpless, and worthless. It not only kills their physical being, one cell at a time, but it kills their emotional life. Relationships begin to suffer, and families do their best to stay strong. But cancer has a way of finding a weakness, exploiting it, and increasing it. Stress levels rise as the cost of treatment increases. Savings accounts are left empty. Suffering takes on so many forms. It destroys families, and leaves behind painful memories of illness and disease. Cancer patients have a "look" - maybe it's the lack of hair, combined with the grayish skin color following chemo. Seeing my mom look so pale, so sick, made me think of something like a zombie apocalypse. Destruction. Devastation.
He was a murderer from the beginning...
John 8:44
...him that had the power of death, that is, the devil...
Hebrews 2:14
Cancer kills. That's just how it is. Sometimes people are fortunate in that they survive cancer. But even those that survive must endure surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation... sometimes the treatment feels worse than the disease. I watched my mom sick at her stomach, lose her hair, and grow weak to the point that she couldn't stand on her own two feet. At one point, she wished for death. The treatment was painful. It stole her appetite, which led to malnutrition. She was sick. She was weak and tired. And she hated to look in the mirror. Eventually the treatments proved to be ineffective. The cancer was spreading faster than the chemo could kill it. Cancer killed her, just like it did Matt's friend.
Satan is our adversary. And so is cancer. We can envision one as the other pretty easily. Just as cancer spreads rapidly within us, filling our bodies with distorted, unhealthy cells, and robbing us of our health and vitality, Satan can rapidly spread throughout our lives. He can replace the loving, healthy relationships, thoughts, and feelings, with negative visions and catastrophic choices. He can steal bright futures and replace them with paths of destruction. And he can do this without us even realizing it is happening, much like cancer. By the time we realize that our bodies have been ravaged by the constant division and replication of mutilated DNA, the prognosis can be bleak. And so it is with Satan - oh how he loves to see us head down roads full of heartache and grief and surrender ourselves to his power of death! So quickly he can destroy our lives, and take us to depths we never envisioned we would be, and we wake up with Stage 4 Sin.
We may not yet have the cure for cancer, though I pray it is coming soon. But thankfully, we do have the cure for the eventual outcome Satan brings. Our Heavenly Father offers us a cure that comes with no painful side effects, no risk of further disease or infection, and no clinical trial needed. He sent us Jesus. God is not in the life-taking business, but rather the life-giving business. He wants to see us healthy - physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually. He wants us not just living, but thriving. He wants us building a lifetime of loving memories and happiness. What He wants for us is everything that cancer, and it's author, is not.
I think it is important to address that God is not the author of cancer. He does not cause that we should have cancer. He does not want us to have cancer. But cancer is the result of living in a fallen, broken, generally jacked-up world. And cancer does not care who it infects. It is an equal-opportunity destroyer, much like Satan. I do not mean to imply that sinners get cancer. If that logic were true, we would all have cancer. We will not all have cancer, but we will all have sin. And if we are not careful, that sin can lead us down a dangerous road. A road that Satan wants us to walk down. And because of that, I feel certain that Satan is the creator of cancer, and rejoices in the suffering it causes.
As we say good-bye to another cancer victim, I can't help but think that his struggle with cancer is such a parable for the human struggle with Satan. While we will all eventually meet the same fate, and that all must die in the flesh, I know that my soul has been "vaccinated" with the precious blood of Jesus.
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